My BlogComments Off on New Series/Episode Impressions/Reviews Thingamajig

Oct072011

Before we begin, I would just like to say that Kimi to Boku is gaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. Not in an awesome Shoreleave x Ray Gillette (ShoreRay) way, but in a “Boy’s Love”-Bait way. Hell… okay, quick review. It started promisingly. I thought it was going to be an Air or Kanon affair based on the title, but then it started with a girly boy named Shun, and I was like, “oh gosh, Greenwood remake!?”, but then the thing just got progressively booooooooooooooooring. I started skimming at the roof top lunch scene (the male version of tea and cake in the clubroom) and I couldn’t even finish the ep from there. But anywho, reviews of other shows after the jump.

What’s neat is that we’re dropped right in the middle of this cliche cluster.

Take the first ep, we’re dropped right in the middle of a big battle between the elite S class and the “underdog” F class. What’s neat is that like other aspects of the show, it’s the kind of battle you expect to see in the middle or even the end of such series where there’s an Elite S vs Loser F (like in BakaTest). And it’s implied that there’s been an actual series of cliche events that lead up to this battle.

This dropping in the middle thing extends to the series as a whole so far. From the two main characters’ incestual love (which is known and accepted by everyone) and how every chick is in love with the main guy. This kinda rocks because let’s face it, we know how he acquired each chick in his harem already. It’s been done hundreds, if not thousands of times since the advent of anime. If we wanted to see how he seduced his harem, we could just go watch Hanakyou Maid Tai or something.

So, the dropping in the middle is good because it assumes we wouldn’t want to slosh through the cliches to get to this point, which is true enough. The battle that dominated this episode was also pretty good. It’s not on the level of the battles of BakaTest season 1, but it doesn’t descend to the same level of ludicrousness of Code Geass or the whatever or Galactic whatevers. It bordered on Code Geass Failness, but enough set backs happen in a non-Suzaku way for it to keep from crossing that line.

So that’s the episode as a whole so far. About the only wild card right now are the two random Ikkitousen reject chicks. Hopefully they won’t end up being responsible for the series ending up crappy.

Oh, and speaking of the series potentially ending up crappy, let’s talk about the main chick.

As it stands now, she’s in a position to maintain (not make) or break this series. We’ll have to see how things turn out. She’s obviously the most striking character right now. She shares a very similar character head design and general body shape as the main chick from Medaka Box. They’re pretty much the same character. An overpowered Miss Perfect. Though Medaka from Medaka Box skews more to the idealistic shounen side, she’s something of a Chairman Haruhi type. The main chick from MajiKoi is essentially the same character, though she leans more on the Ikkitousen end of shounen-ness. The good thing is that she ends up like a Hamy-lite as a result.

The way I see it, she has a couple landmines in front of her that’ll potentially break the series. One is that she’ll get mind controlled or something toward the end of the series, thus allowing her to tap into some uber dark side of her personality and draw out her full potential. We don’t need that. She’s plenty powerful enough. She’s already at the top of the pile. Escalation does not equate drama. Take a look at the second Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann movie where all the minor characters who died in the tv series but didn’t in the movie, get their own Tengen Toppa units. And all these combine with the TTGL to form Super TTGL… and they all completely and utterly fail at being epic or dramatic because at that point, it’s become a DBZ style Power Level Fight. Oh, also, both Kamina and what’s his name still go out like bitches.

The other landmine is if the whole incest thing goes beyond the point already established. The two main characters and the entire cast already acknowledge that they’ve got a creepy incestual thing going. That’s fine as is. As it stands now, it’s a very manly incestual relationship. Like a shogun and his samurai’s manly forbidden love for one another. If at some point the main chick holds the main dude in her naked bosum in some out of body meta-symbolic sequence, we’ll, that’ll be a potential jumping the shark moment.

Hell, a double whammy would be that it’s this love that’ll snap her out of her dark side. I know there’s cliche but then there’s cliché. In this case, the status quo should be kept.

Right now I’m hoping for wackiness out of MajiKoi. It can hit drama and life lessons, but don’t let that be a dominant force. Look at the first episode of Horizon whatever. It was a perfectly serviceable first ep, but wham! The first ep expositionary epilogue happened and suddenly it’s all become self important gibberish.

Kyoukai Senjou no Horizon 01
So anywho, talking about Horizon whatever… I got two versions of it. One’s from HorribleSubs, the other I can’t recall. I got the HorribleSubs version second, and boy, was it ever an improvement over the earlier version by that other group (in terms of accuracy, meaning, making fucking sense etc).

Horizon, well, it’s a neat world and stuff, but I was hoping for some Princess Valkyrie or Saber Marionettes J action. And for the most part, we got that. It was cool. Like MajiKoi, we’re dropped right in the middle of stuff and the entire ep was one nice long action sequence. But then the end of the episode occurred and it looks like it’s going to try and be “serious business”. That’s laaaaaame.

Also, the show’s incredibly racist. It focuses mostly on the big breasted chicks and partial focus on that group with the ninja hat guy and robot guy. But the non-humans like the incubus, the slime and the Indian are pretty much ignored and abused.

Still, both shows show some promise. Probably won’t be mind blowing, but it’s not like I’ve got high expectations for them.

Shinryaku! Ika Musume S2E2
Oh, a note on Ika Musume season 2, episode 2. Yeah, I was worried from the first ep that they’ve lost the touch, but looks like they got the comedic timing back now.

Final note, is Penguindrum still going on? I have zero idea. Did the show end after the sister die? Because if so, I might pick it back up again. But if there’s another dozen eps to go, I’ll probably just continue to drop it. God, that Ringo Rapist arc just KILLED my enthusiasm for the show.

Aaaaaand another thing. Phi Brain is like, Professor Layton: The Anime, where every little action is preceded with a puzzle. Only all the puzzles are done off screen. And then it turns into Yugioh when the guy starts using his full brain potential or something.